We took our time with opening our gifts, finally opened the last ones after Christmas dinner. We ate very well today, Had toast and pate for brekkie, cheese cake after our noon walk, during which we also shoveled the driveway and sidewalk. Jo saw the plow going by and talked the driver into giving our little crescent a cleaning as it had been missed yesterday. Then it was time for dinner, yummy turkey dinner with all of the trimmings.
Opening prezzies was so much fun. We bought the puppies a few toys and they had a great old time playing with them and also tearing up the wrapping paper. All in all it was a wonderful day and we're now relaxing and watching the Downton Abbey movie.
Yesterday I updated some new books I got over the past month. I never completed the list as I was a bit tired last night so I'll finish it off tonight. As well, I finished one of my final 2021 books so I'll provide my review of that, one down, two to go.
Just Finished
"I've previously read the first Sgt Cribb's historical mystery by Peter Lovesey and enjoyed. For some reason this first of the Peter Diamond series, The Last Detective has sat on my bookshelf for way too long. Peter Diamond was an
Inspector in London. After a court case in which he was accused of
intimidating a suspect into confessing, Diamond has moved to take over
CID in Bath. The case continues to hang over his head, unresolved.
A
woman's body is found in a river, naked and unidentified. Murder is
suspected and Diamond and his team try to get clues to her identity.
Diamond's #2, Inspector Wigfull, is mistrusted by Diamond as he feels
Wigfull has been put in the position as both a spy for the boss and also
to be ready to take over CID should Diamond get in trouble.
The
body is finally identified as an ex-actress on a popular British soap
opera. Her husband is a professor at the local university and involved
setting up a Jane Austen exhibit. His relationship with his wife is
indifferent at best, tempestuous at the worst. Diamond suspects Prof
Jackman but then switches his views. Jackman had rescued a young boy,
Matthew Didrickson, from a fall into the river and had developed a
friendship with his wife. Diamond and Wigfull begin to suspect Dana as
the murderer, possibly due to jealousy about Jackman's and his wife's
relationship.
There are many twist and turns in this story, even
to the point of Diamond quitting his job. But he continues to keep an
eye on the case, until the ultimate, satisfying resolution.
Lovesey
presents the story in an interesting manner. We start with Diamond's
initial investigation, then to Jackman telling his story, then Mrs.
Didrickson, then fall back to Diamond himself. It's a neat way to
present a mystery. The story moves along nicely, with clues dropping
here and there. Diamond is a crusty, at times irritating character, but
he does grow on you as the story progresses. The remaining cast are all
well-described and believable. It was a well-written, interesting
mystery and the solution was very satisfying. Now to get the 2nd book.(4 stars)"
New Books
"Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the future. One of the few who live in Eternity, a location outside of place and time, Harlan’s job is to create carefully controlled and enacted Reality Changes. These Changes are small, exactingly calculated shifts in the course of history, made for the benefit of humankind. Though each Change has been made for the greater good, there are also always costs.
During one of his assignments, Harlan meets and falls in love with Noÿs Lambent, a woman who lives in real time and space. Then Harlan learns that Noÿs will cease to exist after the next Change, and he risks everything to sneak her into Eternity.
Unfortunately, they are caught. Harlan’s punishment? His next assignment: Kill the woman he loves before the paradox they have created results in the destruction of Eternity."
"The novel opens with a Lutheran minister complaining about a pornography ship that recently opened at the edge of town. Next a brutal knife murder happens in the shop's parking lot. All of this prompts Balzic the police chief to work the case, digging up reluctant witnesses and asking questions."
(Editor's Pause - I just took the doggies out for their night time walk.. This is what it was like)Winter! Who needs it!
"When the young nobleman Harold Transome returns to England from the colonies with a self-made fortune, he scandalizes the town of Treby Magna with his decision to stand for Parliament as a Radical. But after the idealistic Felix Holt also returns to the town, the difference between Harold's opportunistic values and Holt's profound beliefs becomes apparent. Forthright, brusque and driven by a firm desire to educate the working-class, Felix is at first viewed with suspicion by many, including the elegant but vain Esther Lyon, the daughter of the local clergyman. As she discovers, however, his blunt words conceal both passion and deep integrity. Soon the romantic and over-refined Esther finds herself overwhelmed by a heart-wrenching decision: whether to choose the wealthy Transome as a husband, or the impoverished but honest Felix Holt."
"Sita Dulip has missed
her flight out of Chicago. But instead of listening to garbled
announcements in the airport, she’s found a method of bypassing the
crowds at the desks, the nasty lunch, the whimpering children and
punitive parents, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor: she
changes planes.
Changing planes—not airplanes, of course, but
entire planes of existence—enables Sita to visit societies not found on
Earth. As “Sita Dulip’s Method” spreads, the narrator and her
acquaintances encounter cultures where the babble of children fades over
time into the silence of adults; where whole towns exist solely for
holiday shopping; where personalities are ruled by rage; where genetic
experiments produce less than desirable results. With “the eye of an
anthropologist and the humor of a satirist” (USA Today), Le Guin
takes readers on a truly universal tour, showing through the foreign and
alien indelible truths about our own human society."
"Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless."
"Bridey Kelly has come to
Greenway House—the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie—in disgrace. A
terrible mistake at St. Prisca’s Hospital in London has led to her
dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a
position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from
the Blitz.
Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles:
wondrous curios not to be touched, restrictions on rooms not to be
entered, and a generous library, filled with books about murder. The
biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one
Bridey has ever met. Chasing ten young children through the winding
paths of the estate grounds might have soothed Bridey’s anxieties and
grief—if Greenway were not situated so near the English Channel and the
rising aggressions of the war.
When a body washes ashore near the
estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is not a victim of war, but
of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves,
Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what
has led them to Greenway. With a mystery writer’s home as their
unsettling backdrop, the young women must unravel the truth before their
safe haven becomes a place of death . . ."
"An outstanding array—52 pieces in all—of selected fiction from the multiple-award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, introduced with a foreword by Booker Prize–winning author Marlon James.
A
brilliant representation of Gaiman’s groundbreaking, entrancing,
endlessly imaginative fiction, this captivating volume includes nearly
fifty of his short stories and excerpts from each of his five novels for
adults—Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
Impressive in its depth and range, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is both an entryway to Gaiman’s oeuvre and a literary trove to which Gaiman readers old and new will return many times over."
"Ryland Grace is the sole
survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity
and the Earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he
doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the
nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is
that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been
awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but
two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily
returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone
on this tiny ship that's been cobbled together by every government and
space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it's up
to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance."
So there you go folks. All caught up for now. Looking forward to enjoying Boxing Day tomorrow. Happy holidays!
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